Standards

Squat Standards

Updated 31 Oct 2026 · Source: OpenPowerlifting meet data ↗

Put in your sex, bodyweight and best squat. The calculator places you among raw meet lifters in your class, and the tables give the full percentile spread for men and women plus the median squat by age.

Worked example

Bodyweight 181 lb puts you in the up to 183 lb class.
In that class the middle raw squat is 408 lb.
Your 315 lb sits about the 12th percentile.

Raw squat, men (lb)

Bodyweight class	10th	25th	50th	75th	90th	Lifters
up to 130 lb	175	225	287	336	386	5,114
up to 146 lb	231	281	336	386	430	11,115
up to 163 lb	270	320	375	419	463	27,980
up to 183 lb	309	353	408	457	507	47,714
up to 205 lb	331	380	441	491	540	49,087
up to 231 lb	353	408	463	529	584	40,910
up to 265 lb	364	430	496	562	623	24,735
over 265 lb	375	452	529	606	683	15,834

Raw squat, women (lb)

Bodyweight class	10th	25th	50th	75th	90th	Lifters
up to 104 lb	115	143	176	209	243	2,796
up to 115 lb	138	165	198	237	270	7,446
up to 126 lb	154	185	220	254	287	12,534
up to 139 lb	165	198	231	270	303	19,375
up to 152 lb	175	209	248	287	320	19,611
up to 168 lb	182	220	259	298	342	18,880
up to 185 lb	182	220	265	309	353	13,286
over 185 lb	187	230	276	331	386	18,655

Raw squat by age, all bodyweights (median, lb)

Age group	Men	Women
18-23	424	248
24-39	452	254
40-49	424	236
50-59	386	209
60+	298	165

Each lifter's best result per lift in 2016-2026, from the OpenPowerlifting archive (public domain). A cell is shown only with at least 200 lifters.

Depth is part of the number

A meet squat only counts when the hip crease drops below the top of the knee, and the lifter then stands back up and waits for the referee's signal to rack the bar. Every squat in these tables passed that test.

If your gym squats stop above parallel, your number is not the same lift. Compare only squats you know hit depth, or the table will flatter you.

What the example tells you

The default case is a 181 lb man with a 315 lb squat. He falls in the up to 183 lb class, where the 10th percentile is 309 lb, the 25th is 353 lb and the median is 408 lb. That puts him at about the 12th percentile.

Three plates a side feels like a big milestone, yet among raw meet lifters his size it sits near the bottom. That gap is the clearest sign of how strong the meet crowd is.

Women's squat by class

For women the median squat runs from 176 lb in the up to 104 lb class to 276 lb in the class over 185 lb. A woman up to 152 lb is in the middle at 248 lb and reaches the top 10% at 320 lb, with 19,611 lifters in that row.

Which squats went into the tables

The data is the public OpenPowerlifting archive, filtered to meets from 2016 to 2026, adult lifters and valid results. Each lifter counts once with a best squat, and any class with fewer than 200 lifters stays blank.

Raw here means no squat suit. Results listed with knee wraps were left out, since wraps are a different kind of support and would blur the comparison. The full filter list is on our method page.

The age curve for the squat

Using all bodyweights, the men's median squat is 424 lb at 18 to 23, 452 lb at 24 to 39, and 298 lb at 60 and over. Women go from 254 lb at 24 to 39 to 165 lb at 60 and over. The squat drops faster with age than the bench in this data, so older lifters should pick their age group in the calculator.

Testing with care

Rank yourself with an estimate from a hard set of 3 to 5 reps in the squat max calculator rather than a fresh max attempt. When you do go heavy, squat inside a rack with the safety bars set just below your bottom position. To see your squat as part of a total, use the powerlifting calculator.

Deadlift Standards, Bench Press Standards, Strength Standards

Questions

What is an average squat for a man?

Among raw meet lifters the median ranges from 287 lb in the lightest men's class to 529 lb in the class over 265 lb. A typical gym average would be well below that.

Does a belt or sleeves make it equipped?

No. Belts and knee sleeves count as raw. Equipped means a supportive squat suit.

Can I compare a front squat or box squat?

Not fairly. These tables only hold competition back squats to depth, so other variations need their own reference.

How we calculate: every formula, with its author and year, is on our method page; data sources and their licenses are on sources.

This page uses data from the OpenPowerlifting project, https://www.openpowerlifting.org.

gymnical.com gives estimates from published formulas and public data. It is not medical advice and not a training prescription. Last reviewed November 2026.